The new ROH website

[patsomerset]

I still think it is a work in progress. I think it looks less cluttered and I did at last manage to find casting information for the mixed bill. Whether I shall be able to do it again. I don't know

 

While I was on the site I did look at the comments from the Premium Friends who are now booking for next season and are unable to choose their favourite seats unless the book by telephone. To put it mildly, they are not at all happy! Let us hope it gets better. I am a great fan of the ROH. I find the staff lovely when you are there, and on the phone to the box office, but they do not seem to be able to 'do' technology at least as far as booking is concerned office. I am willing them to get it right when they eventually inveil the new site

[Nina G.]

I too noticed the lack of dancer information: only the principals are even listed. I'm hoping that will follow along shortly.

 

 

I am very annoyed by that too! I want to know whom I'll be watching when booking. I hope ROH very quickly sorts this out.

[Paul Arrowsmith]

_{Utterly flummoxed - arrived on the new ROH home page and can see nothing that says "but now" - or anything obvious to guide you to booking tickets.}

Edited April 28, 2012 by Paul Arrowsmith

[John Mallinson]

Click What's On or on a date in the calendar.

[alison]

_{Utterly flummoxed - arrived on the new ROH home page and can see nothing that says "but now" - or anything obvious to guide you to booking tickets.}

 

Even if it said "Book now" it would be mighty helpful, wouldn't it? I thought that was really a bit daft.

[Paul Arrowsmith]

Click What's On or on a date in the calendar.

 

 

Checkinh what is on is a different action to wanting to book. The number of clicks required is convoluted.

[John Mallinson]

Hate to find myself defending the ROH's website but I disagree! The What's On button is essentially a Book Now button and it is only 3 clicks from the home page to choosing seats in the actual performance that one wants to book. I can't see how they could make it fewer. One can argue round and round whether What's On or Book Now is the more appropriate label: I favour the former, you the latter!

 

What mystifies me on the rather scrappy home page is what the listings under On Stage represent - at present it seems to be four forthcoming productions chosen at random i.e. things that are not On Stage. Actually the more I look at it the less I like it from a visual design point of view but I do think it's easier to use than before.

[zxDaveM]

Yes, it looks pretty good. Think it will be better when its finished though! Seems a lot of info missing (from dancer profiles, to casting in mixed bills). Also the lumping of everything together in one long list of current and future, and ballet/opera/ROH2 productions, seems a bit clunky to me.

[JaneL]

So far, I really like it. It would be nice to have 'what's on' split into opera and ballet sections but that doesn't bother me that much. The only problem I have with it so far is that if you make the window smaller (and I make my internet window significantly smaller when I'm at work, which is where I do a lot of my checking for tickets and is definitely always where I am when booking opens) you can't see the whole of the stalls circle and there doesn't seem to be a way to scroll across/up. So I have to open it to full screen, which makes it pretty obvious that I'm not doing work

 

However, of course the true test of all of it will be the next booking day....

Edited May 2, 2012 by JaneL

[Bluebird]

I just booked a ticket on the new website. On the old website one could choose to pick up tickets at the Box Office. On the new website this option was not available.

 

There was a link available for a help page.

 

http://www.roh.org.uk/help

 

Interestingly, not only is this help page blank but, at this moment in time, there is nothing to say that it is still in development.

Edited May 4, 2012 by Bluebird

[John Mallinson]

ROH is very careless of it's reputation to release a new website in such an incomplete form.

[AnneMarriott]

I just booked a ticket on the new website. On the old website one could choose to pick up tickets at the Box Office. On the new website this option was not available.

 

Unless booking at the very last minute I've always opted to have tickets posted but now there's no means of indicating a choice, as you have found. I only hope that as a delivery address was given as well as a billing address that the tickets I've just booked will drop through the letterbox next week.

 

 

 

There was a link available for a help page.

 

http://www.roh.org.uk/help

 

Interestingly, not only is this help page blank but, at this moment in time, there is nothing to say that it is still in development.

[Bluebird]

Unless booking at the very last minute I've always opted to have tickets posted but now there's no means of indicating a choice, as you have found. I only hope that as a delivery address was given as well as a billing address that the tickets I've just booked will drop through the letterbox next week.

 

Earlier today I wrote to Online booking about the lack of delivery options (I forgot to mention the empty 'help' page!).

 

I received the following reply:

 

"There is a technical error on the website which is causing the issue you describe. The delivery policy has not been changed.

 

Our digital media team are working on this issue and hopefully it will be resolved soon."

 

Let's hope they'll be able to sort it out. I always pick my tickets up, partly to save postage but also because I don't like to entrust bulky orders to the post.

[Bluebird]

I've just received the following from Online Booking:

 

I am writing to confirm that the collect at box office option is still there although the purchase path in the new website is slightly different than before. As long as the performance is more than 10 days away, you are a UK customer and not purchased a student concession ticket, the default delivery option is to have the tickets posted to your billing address; if you want to change this (enter an alternative delivery address or collect at box office) then you just need to click the ‘edit’ link under the delivery address

 

I've done a dummy purchase and, if you click on 'edit' delivery address, the option to collect at Box Office appears. Presumably they'll eventually find a way of making this process clearer.

[rowan]

To be honest, I'm just grateful you can find out what's on. On the old website I seemed to be forever stuck in the waiting room when all I wanted was to find out what was on - perhaps I was doing something wrong! I have problems with trying to look at the seats at the outer edges of the seating plan too - I still find the page is zooming in and out and all over, no matter how much I'm clicking on the white space to drag the plan around.

[alison]

I had the same problem. I then realised that, if you put the cursor on a white bit of the screen, you can drag the plan of the amphi down so as to get at the back. It's very fiddly though as, if you're not careful, it starts zooming in or out and everything becomes distorted.

 

I'm still not having any success with this. In addition, I tried to log in for the first time today, only to get the error message

"There appears to be a problem

• Exception of type 'RoyalOperaHouse.MissingSessionException' was thrown."
  

Huh?? Hoping it's only a temporary glitch.

[granta]

Hello

 

Does anyone know how to zoom out further or move the seating map so you can see the whole plan? Every time I try to click on it, the map just zooms in! There should be some sort of arrow control where you can navigate around the map, but if anyone has found a way around this, please let me know! Exasperated!!

 

Many thanks

granta

[aileen]

I find the site very slow. It seems to freeze every time I try to do something. I haven't managed to book anything on it yet. Are you supposed to press on the seats you want to book? If so, nothing seems to happen. Maybe I'm just not using the site correctly. Can anyone help?

[Bluebird]

I find the site very slow. It seems to freeze every time I try to do something. I haven't managed to book anything on it yet. Are you supposed to press on the seats you want to book? If so, nothing seems to happen. Maybe I'm just not using the site correctly. Can anyone help?

 

If you click on the seat you want, it will appear in the panel on the left hand side. Not only will you see the seat number and price but there will be alternating pictures, of the seat and of the view from the seat. If you decide you want it you need to click on 'select' and a button labelled 'add to basket' will then appear. If you click on this the ticket will go into your basket. Good luck!

[John Mallinson]

Granta, Aileen what version of what browser are you using? I use Safari or Firefox on a Mac and the seat display and selection seem ok though I haven't used it to actually book.

 

There should be a zoom control slider at the bottom of the seating map though even at minimum zoom the Amphi doesn't fit. In that case you should be able to click on the display and drag it around to show the rest of the seats. When you click on a seat it should highlight in red, an image of the view from the seat should appear on the left and a panel giving the price and a Select button should also appear. If this is not happening there is something quite amiss.

 

I note that the pictorial aspects of the booking system require Javascript to be enabled. I suppose it's possible that things don't work properly if you have an old browser - in fact this not terribly helpful help page says as much. You should report your difficulties with a full details to the ROH via their contact link.

[Bluebird]

Hello

 

Does anyone know how to zoom out further or move the seating map so you can see the whole plan? Every time I try to click on it, the map just zooms in! There should be some sort of arrow control where you can navigate around the map, but if anyone has found a way around this, please let me know! Exasperated!!

 

Many thanks

granta

 

If you put the mouse pointer onto the white area to the side of the map you'll get a symbol with arrows pointing in all four directions. You can then drag the plan up, down, to the right or to the left. You have to take care to keep the pointer in the white area or you'll find it does start to zoom in or out. If this happens, just click on 'reset map' and start again! Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to see the whole plan at once.

[granta]

Granta, Aileen what version of what browser are you using? I use Safari or Firefox on a Mac and the seat display and selection seem ok though I haven't used it to actually book.

 

There should be a zoom control slider at the bottom of the seating map though even at minimum zoom the Amphi doesn't fit. In that case you should be able to click on the display and drag it around to show the rest of the seats. When you click on a seat it should highlight in red, an image of the view from the seat should appear on the left and a panel giving the price and a Select button should also appear. If this is not happening there is something quite amiss.

 

I note that the pictorial aspects of the booking system require Javascript to be enabled. I suppose it's possible that things don't work properly if you have an old browser - in fact this not terribly helpful help page says as much. You should report your difficulties with a full details to the ROH via their contact link.

 

Hi John

 

Thanks for the input. I am using Internet Explorer 9 which is the version ROH say you should have. I can see the zoom slider as you mention, it's just the dragging of the seat plan that is difficult. And yes, it's the Amphi where this is particularly problematic because you can't see the whole display and so I am only able to book seats in a limited part of the auditorium!

It seems to be a bit of a design fault as I've seen this kind of thing in other online booking systems where you can navigate around the seating plan easily but this aspect does not seem to be working (or not on my display anyway!). I've reported it and am hoping that it will be sorted before my next booking surge!

 

granta

[granta]

If you put the mouse pointer onto the white area to the side of the map you'll get a symbol with arrows pointing in all four directions. You can then drag the plan up, down, to the right or to the left. You have to take care to keep the pointer in the white area or you'll find it does start to zoom in or out. If this happens, just click on 'reset map' and start again! Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to see the whole plan at once.

 

Hi

 

Thanks! I've tried that but the arrows with four directions don't appear so there must be some issue with my browser or something! I don't mind if I can't see the whole plan in one screen, just that I can see all available seats somehow!

I will report back if ROH get back to me with any useful information.

[Bluebird]

Hi John

 

Thanks for the input. I am using Internet Explorer 9 which is the version ROH say you should have.

 

granta

 

I've been using Google Chrome without problem. I do, however, have Internet Explorer on my computer. I just tried it out. Although the four sided arrow appeared, I wasn't able to drag the map around with it. Maybe it's an IE issue? Are you able to download a different browser such as Google Chrome? It might possibly solve your problem.

[granta]

I've been using Google Chrome without problem. I do, however, have Internet Explorer on my computer. I just tried it out. Although the four sided arrow appeared, I wasn't able to drag the map around with it. Maybe it's an IE issue? Are you able to download a different browser such as Google Chrome? It might possibly solve your problem.

 

Thanks. I've now tried using with Google Chrome (that is what ROH wrote back to suggest also) and it is marginally better, but still very fiddly and time consuming! Maybe it is just my fine motor skills that are lacking. I am going to have to book my ticket by - gasp - telephone.....!

[aileen]

I don't seem to have the same problems on the computer (previously I had been using my iPad).

[alison]

It is indeed an IE issue: it works fine for me on Firefox. Well, not fine, it's still a bit clunky, but reasonably well. How ridiculous that the site hasn't been optimised for a major browser like IE.

 

And also how ridiculous that if you start clicking on what La Fille Mal Gardée links there are they all take you to the live cinema broadcast, rather than allowing you to book as you can with all the other productions.

[John Mallinson]

Looking again at the Amphi problem (not being able to see the whole plan without panning around) I realised of course that if you click the black button with the little corner symbols at the top right it expands the display to the full size of the window so you can indeed see the whole thing. One should always click everything in sight to see what happens!

[aileen]

I find it rather strange that the three ballets making up the forthcoming triple bill are listed (and take you to booking) separately, although I recollect that they also appear together as one programme.

[Bluebird]

Looking again at the Amphi problem (not being able to see the whole plan without panning around) I realised of course that if you click the black button with the little corner symbols at the top right it expands the display to the full size of the window so you can indeed see the whole thing. One should always click everything in sight to see what happens!

 

I've just tried that but, on my computer,although it works with the lower areas of the House, it doesn't work with the amphitheatre.

 

Edited to update the above. It doesn't initially show the whole amphitheatre but it does allow you to drag the plan around until you can see the whole of it. At last! Thank you John.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Bluebird

[alison]

Never worked with me, either, but I'll try again.

[alison]

That calendar is really annoying in that there's no overview of what's happening until you click on a specific date. Is there anywhere else I've missed where I can see at a glance what's on all week/month?

[MargaretN7]

That calendar is really annoying in that there's no overview of what's happening until you click on a specific date. Is there anywhere else I've missed where I can see at a glance what's on all week/month?

That's something I've been looking for as well. It doesn't seem to be designed to cater for that sort of use.

Good for someone who wants to see a specific production, listing dates and casts, good for someone who wants to attend on a particular day with that clicking on a specific date, but, so far anyway, not that overview.